Social Media Metrics That Matter

How do you measure social media metrics in a way that is meaningful for your business?

While it is okay to track “vanity metrics” like followers or likes, businesses tend to confuse this as an achievement versus what it really is – an opportunity. Communities can be bought via campaigns, contests, and promotions but that does not necessarily translate into an increase in sales.

First and foremost, you need to clarify your goals. As we’ve written before, it is important to align your social media strategy to your overall marketing objectives. Once you establish those objectives, you can define your social media goals and determine the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure.

Below are three social media metrics you should start paying attention to, and measuring today.

1. Engagement

High engagement is often considered the Holy Grail of social media achievement – and for good reason. If your audience is highly engaged, chances are your content is matching their needs.

How to measure it:
PER POST – measure engagement per post if your goal is to optimize your content. This is the only way to analyze objectively how different content resonates with your audience. For example, follow these formulas for Facebook and Twitter:

Facebook

Likes + Shares + Comments + ClicksPost Reach

Twitter

Replies + Retweets + FavouritesFollowers

These formulas can be applied to almost any platform. If you cannot determine your post reach, just add up the engagement actions and compare those numbers, post over post.

CHANNEL ENGAGEMENT – measure overall engagement of a channel for a big picture of your relationship with your audience. You can use the native analytics tools in each channel, or you can use an external analytics tool, such as HootSuite or SproutSocial. Track this over time to determine if your content strategy is improving.

2. Conversions

Ideally, your social media activities are converting followers into customers. Understanding social media conversions can be complicated, and it is important to first understand your sales funnel. Social media can send people to your website, but if your website isn’t optimized for sales you wont be converting customers in high numbers.

How to measure it:Use Google Analytics (or another web traffic analytics tool). Take full advantage of the features; set up goals and track your funnels. Watch the amount of traffic that social media is sending to your site and the percent of conversions from that traffic.

3. Influencer Relationships

Creating relationships with influencers in your industry can be extremely valuable. By offering something valuable and building trust you can gain access to their networks.

How to measure it:Trying too hard to quantify these relationships is a mistake. Quality is the goal, and you can’t measure trust and good will. If it is helpful to your process, track the frequency with which you reach out to certain key influencers, but don’t over do it. Be authentic and trustworthy, try to provide value and the ROI will follow.